What were they thinking: Copyright in the digital age

It is easy to poke fun at the patent system, but what about copyright? It is rather dated and the University of Glasgow starts thinking about how to change it...

There are many notions and estates that don’t make sense these days. They badly need a major overhaul. I love talking about the way in which the patent system is broken and has failed to keep up with modern times and the rate of development of technology. I was interested to see this press release coming out of England, where they believe that it is also time to completely rethink what is meant by copyright in a digital age. They intend to spend the time and money trying to figure it out. As they point out, studies have shown that between 60% and 70% of young people illegally download music, movies or TV shows, but often those who download most are also the best customers. I also think it is time that someone stood up to the MPAA and made them change their licensing so that technology can move forward without them in the way.

So, on to the press release…

A new center dedicated to examining the changing nature of copyright and the need for new business models in the digital age has just been launched at the University of Glasgow.

The Centre for Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise and Technology (CREATe) brings together researchers from seven UK universities who will work to address the challenges an increasingly digital world presents to government, business and content creators.

Over the next four years, 40 CREATe projects focused on the intersections between culture, the economy and technology will offer policymakers invaluable analyses for developing new regulatory frameworks. The research will also play into debate about the growth of new and emerging services. CREATe’s projects are led by experts in law, business, economics, technology, psychology and cultural analysis and are funded by a £5m investment from UK research councils. Over the funding period, the University of Glasgow is committing a further £1.7m to research posts and PhDs in the Colleges of Arts and Social Sciences to establish CREATe as an international center of research excellence.

Good luck to them and I hope some good changes come out of it, such as being allowed to copy a movie onto a hard drive! What other changes would you like to see?

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Less restrictions on paying customers' rights to use copyrighted content on multiple screens would be nice. In the U.S., an overhaul of the DMCA is in order. It's ridiculous that a paying customer has to break the law to put his or her DVD collection on a media server or make a copy that plays on his tablet.